Man City 2-5 Leicester - tactical analysis. How Brendan Rodgers's side pulled apart Pep's Man City?

Brendan Rodgers set up his side in what looked a defensive 5-4-1 shape on paper.

However, it was parts of the system that enabled his side to flourish going forwards...

1. Interestingly,Rodgers decided to play natural central midfielder Dennis Praet as a tucked in right winger - this allowed Timothy Castagne the licence to fly forwards from right wing-back.

Castagne now has 3 G/A in his first 3 PL games

At Atalanta, Gasperini taught his wing-backs to flood the box with late runs at exactly the right moment and Castagne has taken forwards these teachings to Leicester

Here, Praet takes up a deeper position to protect the counter, so Castagne can run into the box & assist Vardy

2. Daniel Amartey (former defensive midfielder/RB) playing as a right sided CB also aided this

When Man City got to the final third,he played as a CB,with Castagne retreating to form a back 5

On-the-ball,he went into wider RB areas to stop City countering when Castagne advanced

3. On the left side,James Justin's role was to stretch the play high & wide in Leicester's build-up rather than fly into the box like Castagne often did

These runs were often used as decoys to occupy Walker which then created space for Harvey Barnes to come inside off the left

Therefore, often Barnes effectively formed a front two with Vardy, ensuring he wasn't isolated

The partnership between the two was best shown during the 2 penalties that Vardy won,with Barnes driving inside & playing delicate thru balls into Vardy

4. A key vs Man City is to have a player to master attacking transitions - morphing from the back 5 we talked about earlier into a counter-attack is vital

Youri Tielemans was that man - the way he escaped Man City's counter-press in his own half & set-up counters was phenomenal

A recurrent theme for Man City

A big concern is how City's whole defence is unravelling due to one simple pass between their defenders- hints at a lack of coordination between their defenders,which should be built on the training ground

It happened for all 3 Leicester penalties

This same weakness has also been exposed during recent losses to Lyon, Arsenal (FA Cup) & Spurs

The other concern is that it's not even happening when the defensive line is particularly high

Deep line,medium line,high line - one pass to a quick runner is regularly hurting City

A new pressing problem

Man City's pressing was also very ineffective vs Leicester.

This is best seen from the build-up to the first penalty.

1. Neither Sterling nor KDB are closing passing lanes or pressing closely enough to Evans - leaving an easy pass into Nampalys Mendy

2. The next wave of pressure from Fernandinho is also initiated far too late - Mendy spins away from him.

And now Man City's back four are exposed to Barnes & Vardy

If you are going to press as aggressively as Man City,then it has to be carried out perfectly

And there were similar issues that Arsenal exposed in the FA Cup semi-final- Tierney advances past the press easily & KDB/Gündoğan are in frankly odd positions in the pressing structure

Conclusions

•Praet, Amartey & Justin were system facilitators to allow Barnes & Castagne to flourish
•Tielemans mastered Leicester's transition from defence to attack
•Coordination between Man City's back 4 is too easy to expose
•Man City pressing isn't as sharp as previous

Retweets of the original post in the thread much appreciated if you enjoyed reading it. And any feedback always welcome. Thanks